The Last Page of Stars

The Last Page of Stars

22 october 2017

 jp melville

You tried at the beginning.

You wrote the love poems.

Actually they came kind of naturally.

But your ears only heard that you never wrote for her.

So you stopped writing

A brake compressed all day

Though still love seeped out

And you tried anyway

You felt things and you loved some more

Reached out to touch, hold, embrace.

Stars

Lying on the side of the bed

You’ve just been kicked in the bridge of the nose

Followed by bruising words denigrating

Told that you mansplain, slutshame, stalk

The pain deepest in the voice that spits the slurs.

So over time the feeling dulls

And hides itself from love

Seeks a refuge

Folds in on itself

To sleep, tucked away.

Odd that the object of love’s love

Screams in terror of abandonment

The guillotine self constructed

The knife blade dropped by the hands of its own executioner

A horrible loneliness sweeping over the landscape of a broken soul.

Sad.

So it was…

On the edge of a swamp where I sat

Evening curtained a glorious warmth, insects flickered in yellow light

Red wing blackbirds chattered among bulrushes

A beaver lazed through wedge rippling water

Cool air swept across our lives

Closed the last page on that season of time.

So it is…

Bedding to sleep I close my eyes

To a scene soon deep blanket of snow

Breathing in slowly, deeply

To dream of new passage to spring.